Taken, with editing, from a posthumous volume of the preacher’s Sermons. Grierson (1817-1880) was Free Church minister of Irongray, just west of Dumfries.
Luke 22:44. And being in an agony, He prayed more earnestly; and His sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.
The original institution of the ordinance of the Lord’s Supper was very close in time to the sufferings of Christ which it was intended to foreshadow. In an upper room at Jerusalem, and around the table of communion, Jesus had distributed to His disciples bread and wine as emblems of His body to be broken and His blood to be shed for the remission of sins. There He had delivered to them that most tender address, in chapters 14-16 of John’s Gospel, with eyes uplifted to heaven; there He had presented that most sublime and affecting prayer recorded in chapter 17 of the same Gospel and He had joined them in singing a hymn.
But now, Jerusalem is exchanged for the solitude of Gethsemane, the upper room for a garden, and the sacramental cup for that cup of agony which was filled from “the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God”. Then Jesus “went forth with His disciples over the brook Kedron” (Jn 18:1). The brook Kedron was a shallow, mountain stream which flowed on the east of Jerusalem between the city and the Mount of Olives. Its name, which signifies dark, was probably derived from the gloom of the shady hollow through which it flowed in its course towards the Dead Sea.
After crossing this brook, Jesus and His disciples came to a place called Gethsemane, “where was a garden, into the which He entered, and His disciples”. Gethsemane was a solitary, sequestered spot at the foot of the Mount of Olives; it was shut in by the mountain on the one side, and on the other was the brook Kedron, which separated it from Jerusalem.
The scene has been thus described by a modern traveller who recently visited the spot: “We descend the steep broken path . . . into the valley of the Kedron, and crossing its dry bed by a small arch, reach a group of singular and memorable objects. First, on our right, is a stony plot of ground surrounded by a low wall, and enclosing eight olive trees of very great antiquity, gnarled and time-worn, where was the Garden of Gethsemane. There is something very impressive in the spot, shady and silent as it is, shut in by the high dead wall of the temple on one side, and the woody heights of Olivet on the other. The hum of the insect, a distant cry or occasional footfall seems to deepen its profound quietude, which is almost like the loneliness and stillness of the desert. Through an opening in the trees is seen an angle of the wall hanging above the sepulchral valley of Jehoshaphat, while melancholy cliffs close in the view.”
The silence and seclusion of the spot rendered it particularly suitable for getting away from people. After spending the day teaching in the temple, “Jesus oftentimes resorted thither with His disciples”. But the Garden of Gethsemane is now indissolubly associated with Christ’s last visit when, in its deep seclusion under the shade of night, those mysterious sufferings began which were to end the following day on the cross. Its entrance on this occasion was to Him, as it were, the entrance of “the valley of the shadow of death” (see Luke 22:40,44). “When He was at the place, He said unto them, Pray that ye enter not into temptation. And He was withdrawn from them about a stone’s cast, and kneeled down, and prayed, saying, Father, if Thou be willing, remove this cup from Me; nevertheless, not My will, but Thine be done. And there appeared an angel unto Him from heaven, strengthening Him. And being in an agony, He prayed more earnestly; and His sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.”
As the original institution of the supper fitly preceded and prepared the way for the sufferings of Christ – prefiguring His sufferings and death, then future – so a brief meditation upon Christ’s agony in the garden may, by God’s blessing, prepare your minds for a right observance of that solemn ordinance which commemorates the same sufferings and death now past.
I propose to speak (1) of the outward expressions and indications of the Saviour’s agony, (2) of the causes that produced it, (3) of the prayer with which it was accompanied. Let us seek to approach the subject with that deep reverence with which it becomes us to think and speak on a theme so sacred; let us remember that on a subject so mysterious as the sufferings of the God-man, our thoughts can only be as the feeble conceptions of childhood, our words but as the lispsings of infancy; and let us plead to be inwardly enlightened by the Holy Spirit, so that we may obtain an insight into the deep and awful mysteries of redemption. And as we turn aside, like Moses, to see this great sight, why the bush burns and is not consumed, we may also feel, like him, that the place where we stand is “holy ground”.
1. The outward expressions and indications of the Saviour’s agony.
We are told by Matthew that, when Jesus had reached the place, He “began to be sorrowful and very heavy”. We are not to conclude that this was the first occasion on which Christ suffered. For the main object of the Son of God in assuming our nature, and appearing in our world, was to suffer; and His whole history from the manger to the cross was one continued course of suffering. The lowliness of His birth, the poverty of His condition, the toil and weariness through which He had to pass, “the contradiction of sinners”, the hardness of their hearts, their determined resistance to all His benevolent attempts to promote their welfare, accompanied oftentimes with the deadliest personal malignity to Himself – these constantly grieved His holy soul and rendered Him in very deed, as described by the prophet, “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief”.
But all this was as nothing to what now awaited Him. His people experience, during life, crosses and cares, disappointments and trials; but these are to be followed, as they well know, by something far more repulsive, from which nature shrinks far more sensitively – from the solemnities of a death-bed and the agonies of a mysterious dissolution. It is not the trials of their earthly lot, but the fear of death, that keeps them all their lifetime “subject to bondage”. Similarly all the humiliation and trial that Christ had yet experienced were but preparatory to what He had now to undergo, when the crisis of His suffering was drawing near. It was now, in the Garden of Gethsemane, that the Saviour’s bloody passion, properly so called, began. The grief with which He had formerly been acquainted became anguish now; His sufferings were now converted into agony.
(1.) Let us listen to the words of the sufferer Himself.
Having taken the three disciples apart from the rest, He revealed to them that inward conflict which could no longer be repressed. The hidden anguish which had been as a burning fire shut up in His heart, now burst forth. Jesus said to them: “My soul is exceeding sorrowful”. He told them that the arena of conflict was within His soul, that His soul was sorrowful – full of sorrow, exceeding sorrowful, so full as to overflow with sorrow. And as if even this was inadequate, He adds, “even unto death”, intimating that “the sorrows of death compassed Me, and the pains of hell gat hold upon Me”.
(2.) Let us next consider the terms in which the inspired historians describe His sufferings.
Matthew tells us that “He began to be sorrowful and very heavy” (26:37); and Mark says that “He began to be sore amazed and very heavy” (14:33). These terms are all descriptive of inward suffering and mental anguish of the most intense and fearful kind, so intense as to fill His soul with consternation and amazement, indeed with sore amazement. The cup then given Him to drink was “wine of astonishment”. The expression employed by Luke, when he says that Christ was “in an agony”, is still stronger and more expressive. It was used to denote the deadly strife of two antagonists in the arena when striving for the mastery. It is in fact the strongest word in the language and is employed here to set forth how great the death struggle was which had already begun in the Redeemer’s soul.
(3.) But the intensity of His anguish at this time was such as no language – neither His own or that of the inspired apostle – can fully express.
Four circumstances are recorded which may aid our thoughts on this awful subject.
The first of these circumstances is that, in this hour of mortal agony, Jesus was attended only by Peter, James and John. As that agony reached its climax He retired even from them, that He might suffer alone. This was not a matter of accident but of choice on Christ’s part, and it seems a choice full of meaning. It appears that all His disciples except Judas accompanied Him to Gethsemane, but that when they reached the gate of the garden He suffered none of them to enter save Peter and the two sons of Zebedee. To the rest He said, “Sit ye here, while I go and pray yonder”, as if feeling that His sufferings were to be so intense that the presence of all His disciples would be a burden and a restraint to Him.
But that He might not be left altogether alone He took along with Him the three disciples with whom He had been most familiar, who had witnessed His glory on the Mount of transfiguration. He disclosed to them His inward anguish, as if appealing to their sympathy. Yet knowing well how little succour their sympathy could yield Him, He asked for only their watchful presence. “My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death; tarry ye here and watch with Me”. But as His sufferings increased, and His holy soul was rent with anguish, even their presence was felt as a restraint, and He retired into the deep solitude of the garden, that He might be alone with God and pour out prayer into the ear of His Father, speaking in the bitterness of His soul. “And He was withdrawn from them about a stone’s cast, and kneeled down and prayed.”
May believers not discern in all this the workings of their own nature in a time of trouble? Should some dark and cloudy day overtake them, it will not be a promiscuous company, even of their friends and fellow Christians, that they will desire to see, but only a select few, to seek their presence and sympathy. In a time of difficulty we may feel that even the tenderest human sympathy is unavailing, and we may desire to be left altogether alone, so that we may lift up our soul to God, from whom comes our help and our salvation.
A second circumstance which throws additional light on Christ’s sufferings is His prayer to the Father. “O My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me: nevertheless not as I will, but as Thou wilt.” We shall afterwards consider this prayer a little more particularly. In the meantime, we refer to it only as indicating the depth of Christ’s sufferings. The prayer is indeed offered with perfect submission to the Divine will, but it indicates at the same time how sensitively His nature recoiled from the suffering that He had begun to experience and how anxious He was to escape from it, if that had been within the compass of what was possible even with God.
We remember the composure with which the martyrs have often met even the most cruel and violent deaths. We remember too how Paul, when going bound in the Spirit to Jerusalem did not know the things that should befall him there, save that the Holy Ghost witnessed in every city that bonds and afflictions awaited him; yet he could add, “But none of these things move me”. How intense then must have been that anguish which wrung from Jesus the agonising prayer, “Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me”. How different both in nature and degree from any that was ever endured by man!
A third circumstance is very expressive. After His prayer to the Father, “there appeared to Him an angel from heaven, strengthening Him”. How amazing this interposition of an angel on behalf of Him who is Lord of all their hosts! The eternal Son of God, “whom [the Father] hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also He made the worlds; who, being the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power . . . being made so much better than the angels, as He hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they” (Heb 1:2,3), is strengthened by an angel! When the Father “bringeth in the first begotten into the world, He saith, Let all the angels of God worship Him”. After His temptation in the wilderness, the angels came and ministered unto Him.
Now “there appeared unto Him an angel from heaven, strengthening Him”. Assuredly it would be presumptuous to profess to explain this great mystery fully; but there seem to be three conclusions which we may warrantably draw from the plainly-recorded fact. (1.) It was His human nature alone that was, or required to be, strengthened by the angel. (2.) The sense of the sustaining energy of the Divine nature seems at this awful hour to have been withdrawn from Him, as we know it afterwards was, when He exclaimed on the cross, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” (3.) But for the interposition of the angel infusing new energy into His soul, His human nature would have been crushed and overwhelmed by the burden imposed upon Him. But Christ could say, “In the day when I cried Thou answeredst me, and strengthenedst me with strength in my soul” (Ps 138:3). Now, when we bear all this in mind, and remember that the angel was not sent to share or relieve His suffering, but to strengthen Him for the endurance of it, what a view is given us of the intensity of the Redeemer’s anguish.
The fourth circumstance that may aid our conceptions on this subject is the effect His inward struggle produced on His bodily frame. “His sweat was, as it were, great drops of blood falling down to the ground.” Such is the mysterious, but most intimate, connection between mind and body that they mutually act and react upon one another. Any violent passion or emotion of the mind may produce a cold sweat over the body. But how violent must have been that inward conflict which produced such a sweat as that described in the text. The perspiration pressed out through the pores of His skin by the unnatural violence of His soul’s agony, was mingled with blood and resembled it in colour. So profuse was it that it collected in great drops, which fell to the ground.
All this took place when He was protected by no dwelling, but exposed to the chilling influence of the open air on a cold night. The disciples had felt its influence, for, only a little afterwards, when Peter came into the palace of the High Priest, “the servants and officers stood there who had made a fire of coals; for it was cold, and they warmed themselves: and Peter stood with them and warmed himself” (Jn 18:18). It was when prostrated on the cold damp ground of the garden, and exposed to the chilling atmosphere of that cold night, that Gethsemane was not only watered with the Redeemer’s tears, but bedewed with His blood. What then shall we say of the cause that produced such an effect? For the great drops of blood that fell from His body were but the outward expression of the anguish of His soul.
2. The causes that produced this agony
whose outward indications we have just been considering. The sufferings that we have been attempting to illustrate were not His principal sufferings; they were reserved for the cross, when He was to “bear our sins in His own body on the tree”. But His sufferings in the garden were caused by the near prospect of His last sufferings, a sense of which seems to have been impressed upon His mind by the immediate power of God. That His sufferings might be perfectly voluntary, it was necessary that He should have a foretaste of them. Hence it was that, before the horror of great darkness fell upon Him on the cross, He had to pass under its shadow in the garden; before He was cast into the furnace He had to look in and see the glow of its burning heat; and before drinking from the cup that had been prepared for Him, He had to taste its bitterness.
The word cup is often employed in a figurative sense in Scripture, to denote the portion assigned to anyone, whether good or evil. Thus the Psalmist refers to the multiplied blessings God had bestowed on him: “My cup runneth over” (Ps 23:5). Again, referring to the wrath that shall overtake the wicked, he says, “Upon the wicked [God] shall rain snares, fire and brimstone, and an horrible tempest; this shall be the portion of their cup” (Ps 11:6). The same word is employed by Christ here to denote His sufferings, and it seems to indicate that the cup of suffering assigned Him was composed of various ingredients. What these ingredients were, the sufferer Himself very distinctly intimated.
1. One ingredient in that bitter cup was supplied by the wickedness of men acting in concert with the treachery of Judas, and the weakness of the other disciples.
Twice He had even found the chosen three asleep on His return from prayer, although He had said to them: “My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death; tarry ye here and watch with Me”. “And He went a little further, and fell on His face and prayed. And He cometh unto the disciples and findeth them asleep, and saith unto Peter, What, could ye not watch with me one hour? Watch and pray that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. He went away again the second time and prayed . . . and He came and found them asleep again, for their eyes were heavy.” Though His remonstrance to them was gentle, and His apology for them was kind, yet such apparent unconcern on the part of those whom He had so specially chosen, to whose sympathies He had appealed, and whose watchfulness He had requested, could not fail to be an aggravation of His suffering.
But there was more than this, for when He came to the disciples a third time He saith unto them, “Sleep on now, and take your rest; behold, the hour is at hand, and the Son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise, let us be going; behold, he is at hand that doth betray Me” (Mt 26:45,46). Thus Christ intimated to them His full acquaintance with the dark plot that had been concocting in the city, and the foul bargain into which Judas had entered with the chief priests and elders, to betray Him for thirty pieces of silver. Already the gleam of lanterns and torches is seen through the darkness as the multitude advance, led on by the traitor. And the traitor’s voice is recognised as he says in a whisper, “Whomsoever I shall kiss, that same is he; hold him fast”.
Well did Jesus know what all this meant: that He was to be apprehended as a thief would be, falsely accused, unjustly condemned, mocked, buffeted, spit upon, and at last crucified and slain by wicked hands; and all this at the instigation of the Jews, who were His brethren according to the flesh. He was betrayed by one disciple, denied by another and forsaken by all. Even the three whom He had chosen to attend Him in His agony fell asleep first, and then joined the rest when “they all forsook Him and fled”. Thus deeply was Christ wounded in the house of His friends. How appropriate the words of the Psalmist: “It was not an enemy that reproached me; then I could have borne it; neither was it he that hated me that did magnify himself against me, then I would have hid myself from him: but it was thou a man mine equal, my guide and mine acquaintance. We took sweet counsel together, and walked unto the house of God in company.” (Ps 55:12-14).
True assurance distinguishes itself from presumption by its humbling the soul, making the conscience tender and the heart heavenly.
It is the undervaluing of the Scriptures that makes people so little to study and seek into them.
Thomas Boston